First came the tequila. Then pink. Now, the latest celebrity-endorsed brand is not alcohol but a hot sauce.
Recently, Brooklyn Beckham made his spicy market debut with Nube 23.
The £15 bottles of sauce, which consist of two flavours, Spicy Habanero and Sweet Jalapeño, and labels adorned with kissing cherubs look more like a luxury perfume brand.
The 25-year-old's sauces are hot on the heels of singer Ed Sheeran, who has an offering called Ted's Tingling. Musician Alicia Cooper has a line named after her biggest hits, including Poison Reaper, and Kim Kardashian has invested in Oprah Winfrey's favorite truffle-infused hot sauce, truffle.
However, it's not just celebrities who are getting excited. Consumers have also developed an insatiable appetite for hot sauces, with Ocado reporting a 10% year-on-year sales increase.
The online retailer has more than 100 hot sauces and searches for Korean and Chipotle versions increased 850% and 292% respectively.
But it's the artisanal hot sauce brands that come in Instagrammable bottles and include everything from ghost peppers to yuzu that are really gaining traction.
James Nicolian, co-founder of Some Like It Hot, an online store that specializes in rare and imported versions, describes hot sauce as “the closest thing to magic.” It makes everything better.”
Nicolian tries all the flavors before stocking them. “My current account is 2,500. “I have a further refrigerator in my house and another in the garage just for my own bottles.”
The rise in popularity can be attributed in part to the YouTube program. The Hot Ones where celebrities try to answer questions while eating 10 chicken wings with increasing levels of spice. Idris Elba vowed to complete the challenge, Jennifer Lawrence cried, and Ricky Gervais failed to complete it.
Jen Ferguson, co-founder of the bottle shop. Hops and Black Burns, which sells hot sauces along with craft beers, says that a box with sauces from the program is one of its best sellers. “It costs over £100 but we sell hundreds and hundreds of packs. “People want to recreate the challenge.”
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Elsewhere, there are hot sauce festivals, TikTok tours of hot sauce collections, and forums dedicated to building tolerance. Nicolian is preparing to launch the UK’s first certified “hot sauce sommelier” course.
The spiciness of a hot sauce is captured using the Scoville scale, which measures the amount of capsaicin in a pepper. While Da' Bomb Past Madness, a hot sauce that measures more than 135,000 Scovillle units (60 times hotter than a jalapeño), is popular, most of Ferguson's customers want “something full of flavor that they can throw around for a while.” meals instead of something that is I will destroy them after a couple of drops.”
With Christmas approaching, Nicolian sees a demand for hot sauces for cheese boards and says “there really is a hot sauce for everything.” He sprinkles it on his coffee, on his ice cream, and when he goes out to eat he brings his own selection.
Once, when a chef took offense, Nicolian sent them a box. “They messaged me a couple of weeks later to ask if they could get more.”